The theme of balance which Jack raises in Unit 2 has a lot of resonance and interest for me. This seems to be a key feature or claim that the TSK vision makes–get in touch with Space, Time and Knowledge in deeper ways, and life will return to balance and harmony. This has a lot of interest to me right now given that I have been diving into more Taoist mind-body practices such as qigong and Tai Chi. In Taoist terms, there is an alchemical process at work in this transformation toward balance.
What seems unique is that TSK is challenging the notion of the self at the center of experience, but not by attacking the self head-on. The passage that TSK is an “experiential inquiry” which can “open Space, energize Time and make Knowledge available” has a real solid feeling for me. This seems to be a rubric, at least on some level, to qualitatively gauge the depth/quality of our experience.
The notion of balance has personal meaning to me as I am aware of some patterns which seem to be out of balance. What I had trouble with in the reading is the passage that claims that TSK “counteracts this singling-out tendency.” First, the reading describes how the self wants to be the owner of its experience…making emotions, self-image, attachments, relationships–even personal freedom–its possessions. The self “singles out” these aspects of experiences as its possessions. One could spend years just working through this insight. What I had trouble with is the big leap in the next paragraph which claims “with no positions and no possessions.” What is implied here is that TSK will lead to a stage where the self does not stand at the center, does not own the contents of experience, etc. But this is quite a leap of faith.
What really struck me later was the statement “We think knowledge operates on the level of ideas.” To imply that knowledge can operate differently from relying on ideas, is inviting.
The implication also made is that experience can arise without an owner. This is what EX 7 is exploring. The question is why do we clamor or have such compulsion to own our experience? It seems it is cultural and historical conditioning. But this conditioning is so pervasive that it obscures any other possibilities.
On page 34 in Love of Knowledge, the paragraph that starts, “With the self established at the center…” seems to be a key paragraph. In fact, it sounds very much like the Buddhist diagnosis of the fundamental root of ignorance and explanation of karma. The momentum of desire is so deeply conditioned (now amplified by technology)– that we have the perpetual sense of busy-ness that obscures opportunities for other forms of knowing.
But I have always been bothered by this last phrase “other forms of knowing.” It’s used a lot in TSK books, but never followed up in with specifics, examples, or elaborations of what these other forms of knowing might look like or operate.
EXERCISE 5 in LOK is very intriguing to me…I never have actually done this one, so I am looking forward to doing it over the next few days.
Ron P
Hi Jack
I hear what you are saying, I still wonder why TSK could not
substantiate its claims of “other forms of knowing” with some follow-up in the text. These “other forms of knowing” are alluded to, as you say, by experimenting with the Exercises. But it seems the author (TT) refrains from speaking in first-person terms about the other forms of knowing that have become available to him as a result of the TSK vision. This seems peculiar, given that he goes to great lengths to critique Western forms of knowing, particularly technological knowing, self-at-center, etc.
I do resonate thought with your own first-person experience of centering in the heart…as you know, I was drawn to the work of HeartMath — which does just that, and also attempts to link its work with scientific research on “heart intelligence.”
Ron
Hi Ron,
I’ll just comment on the couple of things you say you find problematic, which are related. TSK says it can put in place a way of knowing/being in which the self does not stand at the center; it also suggest that “other forms of knowing” are possible. You say that both these claims are not supported with specifics, and that they require a leap of faith.
I understand why you would say that, but in fact the exercises offer lots of ‘specific’ ways to challenge the self at the center, and the exercises and vision as a whole offer access to other ways of knowing.
In that sense, this whole program is a kind of ‘answer’ to the questions you raise here, not in the sense of proving that your concerns are not well-founded, but in the sense that it invites into an intensive inquiry into these TSK claims.
I myself have been looking a lot lately at experience that centers in the heart and that activates the senses differently. Suppose the self does not own sensory experience? What is it like? And suppose knowledge does not consist of ideas: if ideas are connected to the head (that’s how it seems to me), and we learn to focus more on embodied experience that centers in the heart, what does that do to the claims of the self?
Big topics, short comment. Thoughts from others?